If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, D-Rob Wouldn't Have No Luck At All

Good morning Fackers. Entering play yesterday, the Yankees pitching was second in the AL at 3.56 R/G and third in ERA at 3.45. All that despite the well-documented problems with Javy Vazquez as well as some spotty relief work, particularly from David Robertson. In fact, as my friend and frequent commenter Gripp pointed out to me, Vazquez and DRob have combined to allow 38.9% of the Yankees earned runs while pitching just 12.5% of the innings.

There are any number of theories about Vazquez' troubles. Aside from speculation about his head and his guts, he's having noticeable mechanical issues. The numbers also suggest Vazquez has been a bit unlucky. Both his FIP (7.94) and xFIP (5.56) are ugly, but not nearly as ugly as his 9.78 ERA.

But Javy's bad luck has nothing on David Robertson. The New York Times' Bats Blog touched on it last week, and it's only gotten worse since then. Robertson has been knocked around in each of his last three appearances, allowing eight baserunners, two home runs, and six runs over just 1.2 IP. Opponents are hitting .545/.615/1.182 against him over that stretch. But it's not as bad as recent events would suggest.

On the season, Robertson sports a comical 14.21 ERA and 2.37 WHIP. His FIP is a still ugly 8.13, but his xFIP is a respectable 3.91. His peripherals are good. He's striking out 11.37 per 9, just a tick off from the 12.04 mark he posted through his first two seasons. He's walking 2.84 per 9, a major improvement on the 4.62 rate he had entering the year. His LD% is a career low 13.0%. So why have things gone so bad for DRob?

First, his HR/FB rate is currently at an unbelievable 33.3%, as three of the nine flyballs he's allowed have gone over the fence. When he's kept the ball in the yard he hasn't had much better luck, as his BABIP sits at a lofty .504. His strand rate is an absurdly low 50.9%. A third of his flyballs are leaving the park. Half of his balls in play are turning into hits. Half of the runners he allows to reach base come around to score. That's a recipe for disaster, and a disaster it has been. It's also a recipe for a big time regression to the mean, and with any luck that'll be coming very soon.

Compounding the problems for Robertson has been his sparing and sporadic use. Of his nine appearances this year, seven have lasted less than an inning, including his last four in a row. Three of them have been six pitches or fewer. Four of his appearances have come on three days rest. One came on a full week's rest. He hasn't been pitching often, and when he has, he hasn't stuck around for long. He's thrown just 2.1 innings in the last three weeks. Part of that is a function of his own ineffectiveness thus far, but much of it is due to the strong performance of the Yankee starters coupled with Joe Girardi's hair trigger tendencies with his middle relievers.

The good news is that Robertson's poor numbers have accumulated over just 6.1 IP. It's an extremely small sample size. His HR/FB rate, BABIP, and strand rate are beyond unsustainable. As they correct themselves and as Robertson accumulates more IP, the results will straighten themselves out. Further, his K rate remains amongst the best in baseball and he's made improvements in his walk rate and LD%. Of course these metrics are also subject to small sample size caveats, but whereas the bad numbers are so bad that they can't possibly last over time, the good numbers aren't so good as to be unbelievable.

Depending upon what the Yankees choose to do with the Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte injuries, the team could find themselves in need of a roster spot in the coming days. Robertson is one of the few players who both has options and isn't too indispensable to consider sending down. That, combined with Robertson's poor performance thus far, could land Robertson on a bus to Scranton. While he would certainly benefit from regular use and perhaps from the confidence that would come with getting back on track, I don't think there's anything wrong with David Robertson that can't be worked out on the Major League level. I wish Joe Girardi would stop using him as a sporadic ROOGY; his results are overdue for a nice turnaround.

The Fine Line Between Awesome & Awful

Monday at The Hardball Times, Nick Steiner attempted to figure out what stats (particularly Pitch f/x) could tell us about the difference between a pitcher at their best and at their worst. We continually lean on clichés like "He didn't have his best stuff today" to explain why a pitcher has a bad outing. It seems apparent fairly early in a game, at least in hindsight, when a starter is dealing or is not.

But how much of that is confirmation bias? In other words, how much does the outcome of the start effect how we remember our perceptions of the beginning of the game? Maybe the difference between a 7 inning shutout and a 7 run disaster isn't "stuff". Perhaps, from the pitcher's perspective, there isn't much difference at all. Is it possible that Joba Chamberlain really did "throw a lot of good pitches" in some of his poor outings?

For a subject, Steiner chose A.J. Burnett, because of the stark difference between his best and worst outings. When sorted by Game Score, Burnett's 10 best starts in 2009 added up to an ERA of 1.06 while his 10 worst came out at 9.13. He went (6-2) in his top 10 and (0-6) in his bottom 10.

There should be some major differences between these two groups of starts. You'd expect to see some patterns emerging in terms of velocity, or movement, or location or pitch selection, right?

In short, no. There was almost no difference at all.

Steiner dug through all of Burnett's Pitch f/x data for this year, painstakingly categorizing it by pitch type (4-seam fastball, 2-seam fastball, change up, curveball, slider), movement (horizontal, vertical), location (outside, border out, border in, middle), batter (lefty, righty) and count (pitcher's, hitter's, neutral).

He sliced the data in lots of intuitive ways but found almost no significant differences between Burnett's good and bad starts. And for every directional variation which might explain his better starts (fewer pitches down the middle in good starts), there is another which runs counter to what is expected (better velocity in bad starts). In my own look at the numbers, I found that Burnett actually walked fewer batters (29) is his bad starts than he did in his good ones (32).

So what separates a great start from a terrible one, if not for pitch selection, movement and location?

For one thing, there is a whole lot more luck involved with pitching than we realize. In a span of three starts this year, Burnett bookended a 4 2/3 inning, 7 run outing against the White Sox with two shutouts against the Rays and Red Sox, each at least 7 innings. Three starts, two absolutely brilliant ones and one that a AAA call-up would be ashamed of. (Relax conspiracy theorists, Jorge Posada caught all three of them.) There are few other professions where such wild variations between success and failure are common at such a high level.

Part of this is the fact that it only takes one pitch to alter the outcome of a game. One three run home run can change the complexion of a start entirely. And the difference between it ending up as a round tripper and a fly ball on the warning track is a matter of a fraction of an inch on the bat. That's just one pitch out of 100 or more.

If you look beyond Pitch f/x, some other things turn up in Burnett's starts. While his percentage of strikes looking was almost exactly the same regardless of the type of outing (18.7% to 18.5%), the occurrence of strikes looking was much higher in his better starts (10.4% to 6.6%). He also allowed almost twice as many fly balls and line drives in his 10 worst starts while ground balls were between 7% and 8% in both.

Are we to believe that he is throwing the same quality of pitches in both groups of outings and getting wildly different results just based on luck? If it was a random chance, the swings and misses, line drives and fly balls would be more evenly distributed. I think it's more likely that there is something that Pitch f/x isn't capable of telling us.

Especially in a broad analysis like the one Steiner conducted, it's difficult (maybe impossible) to zero in on the things that separate a curve ball that induces swings and misses from one that results in an opposite field single. It would have a hard time telling a fastball down the middle in a 3-0 count (unlikely to be swung at) from one when the batter was ahead 2-1. It can't tell which locations are preferable to which hitters, given that some like the ball inside while others favor it out over the plate, for example. Mistakes made with men on base are most costly than ones with the bags empty. What about pitch sequencing, or the amount of pitches hitters saw, how often Burnett was working from behind in the count and so on and so on...

One of the great things about baseball is the amount of data available, but it's a double-edged sword. It makes general questions like this one almost impossible to answer because of the endless number or variables. No two outings are exactly alike and something tells me that even if there was a parallel universe where two of the same games began at the same time, they would probably turn out completely differently anyway.

Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye

We typically don't like to delve into the gossip pages around here, but it's the off-season and news is starting to dry up.

You've probably heard by now that A-Rod and Kate Hudson apparently have split. And well, if those two crazy kids can't make it then what hope is there for the rest of us?

Hudson was credited with helping Rodriguez find peace this year. So without her, he'll surely go back to being a self-centered, socially-awkward, post-season choke artist. It was fun while it lasted.

Don't feel bad A-Rod. You aren't the first one to lose out on this one.

That's it for today Fackers.

11-11

The Yanks have merely a .500 record (11-11) in games which CC Sabathia starts. How is that possible, you might ask, when their record is 14-6 when A.J. Burnett is on the hill and he has thrown 20 fewer innings and his ERA is only a 1/3 of a run lower?

Despite what PeteAbe might want you to think, a 3.83 ERA is simply not "pedestrian". It's well above league average (115 ERA+) and coupled with the fact that he's second in the AL in innings pitched and single-handedly accounts for all of the Yankees complete games, it's pretty impressive.

The reason that the team has a better record in Burnett's appearances is that he is 3rd in the Major Leagues in run support among pitchers with more than 100 IP. Sabathia, on the other hand is 35th, which is pretty bad considering the Yankees are first in runs scored. Joba actually checks in at 2nd on that list while Andy Pettitte is at 21st, and the team's record when they start are 13-6 and 13-7, respectively.

Sabathia hasn't been perfect, but he's also had some tough luck. He lost on Opening Day at the New Stadium after throwing 5 2/3 IP of one run ball to Cleveland, pitched a complete game loss in Detroit, and held the Phillies to 3 runs over 8 innings and took the "L". Last night, he was sabotaged by terrible defense and the offense only put up two runs to boot.

He's only had four plate appearances this year, so I don't think you can really fault him for the team's offensive output when he pitches. The guy has been a horse and if he continues to pitch the way he has so far this year, they're going to win way more than half of the games he starts over the long haul.

Wang Gets The Knife

Good morning Fackers. After a clunker of a game last night, we don't have much in the way of good news for you this morning. In case you hadn't heard, as you read this, or perhaps even prior to your reading this, Chien-Ming Wang is in Birmingham, Alabama undergoing surgery on his right shoulder at the hands of Dr. James Andrews, allegedly to repair a torn labrum.

This is the latest and hopefully the last in a series of professional misfortunes to beset Wang over the past 14 months: his lis franc injury, his improper offseason rehab regimen, his historically bad three starts to start the season, his dubious trip to the DL, his botched rehab assignment and panicked return to the Bigs, his relegation to mop-up man, his lackluster return to the rotation, and then his Fourth of July shoulder injury and subsequent trip to the DL, rehab set back, and now the operation that will cost him the remainder of this year and a good chunk, if not all, of next year. What concerns me is that even if this is the last bad break for CMW, it may also be the straw to break the camel's back.

Much of this is irresponsible speculation at this stage, but look at it this way: Wang will be 30 years old come next Opening Day. He had rotator cuff surgery as a minor leaguer, and then missed time during his rookie season with another rotator cuff injury. He's a sinkerball pitcher who has a very good track record in his career, but possesses neither the peripheral statistics nor the pitching repetoire that is predictive of future success. He missed more than half of last season following a foot injury, pitched very very poorly this year, and now is having his second shoulder surgery before the age of 30. Shoulder injuries are the scarlet letters of Major League pitchers. Few survive one; Wang has now had two, in addition to another shoulder injury that was rehabbed without the knife. Chien-Ming Wang's career, or at least his career as an effective pitcher, may well be over.

Jay pondered something similar nearly two months back, but I thought such speculation was premature at that point. Wang was the rare sinkerballer who had beaten the odds and been wildly successful, and after a very rough start to the season, I thought he was primed to get himself back on track. Now rather than the scenes in Casino that Jay recalled, I can't shake the thought of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption:

Andy: I wound up here. Bad luck I guess.

Red: Bad luck? Jesus.

Andy: It floats around. Has to land on somebody. Say a storm comes through. Some folks sit in their living rooms and enjoy the rain. The house next door gets torn out of the ground and smashed flat. It was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the tornado. I just had no idea the storm would go on as long as it has.

CMW has been in a shit storm of bad luck of late. I only hope it gets better for him, but I don't like his chances. The fact that his current situation reminds me of a conversation between one guy who's an avowed life-long Mets fan and another who's allegedly dating his step-granddaughter can't possibly be a good sign.

Of course, Wang is being operated upon by the most famous orthopedic surgeon in the world, someone who has salvaged the career of many an injured athlete . Yet, he's also the man that allegedly ruined the career of former Yankee (as well as middle finger enthusiast and sometime Pearl Jam punching bag) Jack McDowell. The fact that Wang's surgery comes the day after the McDowell story broke just about sums up the horseshit luck the poor guy has had of late.

In the short term, the Yankees need for another pitcher - particularly with Alf now having a sore shoulder - just went way up. Unfortunately, so did the price they'll have to pay for one - particularly with the non-waiver trade deadline just over fifty hours away. As much as I didn't like the now debunked rumored Bronson Arroyo deal on Monday, the one solace I took in it was that it would have been a preemptive move before the bad news on Wang could break. As noted linguist Omar Minaya might say, that train has now sailed.

Andy Dufresne said hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. Hope is one thing, but right now optimism is quite another. Chien-Ming Wang is crawling through a river of shit. I don't like his chances of coming out clean on the other side.